Any program can be added to steam by putting the Steam Deck into Desktop Mode (hold power button and select Desktop Mode), finding the app in the start menu Right clicking and selecting “add to steam” from the menu. Remember the “game” added to steam will have its own separate controller profile, choose keyboard and mouse template for desktop programs and adjust as needed.
Kdenlive is a video editor that can be downloaded by opening the Discover package manager in desktop mode and selecting to install the program.
Why do this? Well, with Decky Loader plugin Decky Recorder you can record clips of gameplay in Gaming Mode with the Steam Deck. The default file location is /home/deck/Videos/. There isn’t necessarily an easy way to view videos in Gaming Mode on the Steam Deck however, which means the next step of reviewing the footage you took while playing the game requires you to exit into Desktop Mode and open a video player like VNC.
Fine, but… I actually think I like this workflow better, add Kdenlive to steam so you can launch it in Gaming Mode and then create a layout inside Kdenlive (I called it “browse” in demo video) that just has the “media browser”, “clip monitor” and “transport” selected. This is your video player to review the clips you record, now you can switch to the “editing” layout (layouts are in top right of screen in Kdenlive) and directly transition to video editing without ever leaving Gaming Mode.
This video is a (clumsy) demonstration of using Kdenlive in Gaming Mode to make a video.
Ok,the suspension is actually a big deal.I noticed that in desktop mode it usually closes my open files in GIMP and others when I suspend. Not that I wouldn’t save everything first anyway, but good to know.
It really is something that when I finally can afford a nice gaming computer that I think I will miss, the ability to pause the reality a program resides in rather than have to rely on an internal capability of the program to pause without crashing is incredibly useful in my opinion. (I know you can do this with virtual environments on a pc, but it is part of the core experience of using a Steam Deck).
It gets all fucked up when games or apps require always online functionality… grrrr… but that isn’t the Steam Deck’s fault.
